Dedication

  To Claire Cousineau, Audrey Miller,

  and Lisa Zingman—my forever favorite girl gang.

  I’d go on every adventure with you!

  —L.M.

  For my brother, my first adventure buddy

  —M.O.

  Map

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  1. Pairing Day

  2. The Familiar Marina Never Saw Coming

  3. Unprecedented

  4. Where the Arrows Point

  5. The Warning

  6. See What We Could See Sea See

  7. No Socks!

  8. The Promise

  9. Rock the Boat

  10. Creature from the Deep

  11. Who Are You?

  12. The Bond

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Pairing Day

  This is what everyone was waiting for.

  “Achem!” Mayor Mejor cleared her throat. “Don’t be scared, young ones,” she said to the crowd of ten-year-olds. “You all look nervous. So let me make you feel better: This is only the most important day of your lives. Whatever happens today will affect your whole future. And every citizen from three towns will be watching you during the ceremony. There, that made you feel better, didn’t it?”

  Marina, sitting in the back of the gym, felt like her insides were wriggling. And she wasn’t the only one. Every kid in the room stared at the mayor in horror.

  “In a moment, we will walk outside, and you will bond with an animal who will be with you for your whole life. This animal is called a familiar. Your fam—yes, Peckadilly?” she said to the woodpecker sitting on top of her beehive hairdo. Peckadilly had begun to hammer at her hair. Mayor Mejor looked annoyed.

  “I would die if I got a woodpecker, wouldn’t you?” a girl in front of Marina whispered to her friend. Marina could only see her from the back. She had smooth black hair that ended sharply just above her shoulders.

  Her friend—a blond boy—nodded vigorously.

  Marina thought they might be from Riverside Reeds or Woodside Timbers—the neighboring regions. Pairing Day happened once a year, every year, all over Terrafamiliar. Every ten-year-old in the world got their animal companion on this day.

  Nearby towns usually gathered together in one spot. This year, it was Seaside Sands’s turn to host Riverside Reeds and Woodside Timbers. Marina was grateful to be home. It was her best shot at getting the familiar she wanted.

  Marina clasped her hands together. She was ready to beg the universe for a nice and safe familiar. All she ever wanted was a cute, harmless turtle. Or a starfish. Or an otter.

  She wanted something from the ocean, like her family had. When her mom was alive, she’d had a shrimp. Her dad had a crab. Her brother, Harbor, had a sea lion.

  She needed something from the ocean. How could she feel like part of her own family without a sea creature?

  “Pairing Day is special,” Mayor Mejor said, feeding Peckadilly a treat. “Can you feel it? Do you know what makes today different?”

  Yes, Marina thought. Today made her want to hurl. Even more so than usual.

  “Today, Terrafamiliar is closest to the sun,” the mayor explained. “Not only is this the longest and brightest day of the year, it’s also the day with the biggest surge in magic. The animals respond to that outpouring, and—without realizing it—you respond to it too. In a few moments, we will head outside, and the familiars will start arriving.”

  Marina closed her eyes and begged the universe. Please, please—a seahorse would be perfect. Or a seal. Or a penguin. She would even take a walrus to go with Harbor’s sea lion. And (she almost couldn’t dare dream it) what if she got a shrimp, just like her mom? To have that connection to her mom again . . . it would bring more comfort than she could even describe.

  But terrible thoughts kept coming into Marina’s head. She couldn’t stop them. They all started with the words, What if?

  What if she got a lion that was not from the sea? Could she handle a land lion? What if she got a scary animal? One with pointy teeth and a hunger for humans. Or even worse, what if she got a slug or worm? What if she got a cockroach?

  “Your familiar resembles your personality,” Mayor Mejor explained.

  Oh, great. Now it would be even worse to get a cockroach. It gave her something else to worry about.

  “So think very hard about presenting your best selves, children.”

  Marina twisted her hair nervously. What was her best self? She was always worried. She even worried in her sleep. There were so many bad things that could happen. It took a lot of energy to worry about them all.

  “You don’t have to do anything to find your familiar. Your match will come to you, no matter what you do. All you have to do is be approachable.”

  Marina winced. She was sitting alone, with no one on either side of her. How in the world was she supposed to be approachable? She leaned over across an empty seat to say hi to a boy named Wade from her lower-school class.

  He looked at her with mild curiosity. But his eyes felt like lasers. She was melting under the pressure. What if she talked too much? What if she talked too little? What if she said something weird or embarrassing? What if everyone secretly hated her?

  “Marina? Did you want something?” Wade asked.

  “Um . . . never mind,” she whispered.

  If she wasn’t good at socializing with people, would she be any good at socializing with her familiar?

  Marina curled a lock of hair around her finger and tried to focus on Mayor Mejor. She was saying something important, and Marina was too buried in her own head to hear.

  “—even the venomous, dangerous, deadly animals come in peace. They mean you no harm. They’re just looking for their humans.”

  Venomous animals? Dangerous animals? Deadly animals? Marina slunk down in her seat.

  “Oh!” Mayor Mejor gasped, looking at her pocket watch. “The sun is almost at its highest point. It’s time!” She swatted at Peckadilly, who now tried to hammer her ear. “File out, quickly now!”

  Everyone rushed for the doors in the back of the gym. Marina was swept up in a current of kids, who led her into the hallway.

  This is where Harbor went to school. She would go here too, once she had her familiar.

  The upper school seemed made for any type of familiar. If she had a giraffe or elephant, their heads wouldn’t even come close to brushing the forty-foot-tall ceilings. If she had a reptile, she could let it soak up lamplight in one of the terrarium stands. If she had a gerbil, hamster, or mouse, she would let it run wild in the walls made of multicolored plastic tubes.

  Marina was too busy looking at the intertwining tubes, and she nearly tripped over a bale of hay on the floor for the farm animals.

  “Watch it!” a kid behind her said.

  Marina turned around. “Sorry—”

  Splash!

  She stepped into an inflatable puddle pool. The kids around her laughed, and Marina blushed. Her right shoe was soaked. But at least she knew where her water familiar would paddle around.

  Please let me have a water familiar, Marina thought. She passed by classrooms, and she peeked in as she was whisked by. Each room looked like it had been stretched in every direction. Her stomach knotted. What if her familiar was loud in class? What if her familiar was super smelly? What if her familiar ate her homework every day?

  The hallway started to feel like a tunnel of doom. Marina wanted to pause time. Right here, right now. Before all her worst nightmares were realized.

  But the mayor’s voice rang out. “Quick, everyone! Outside! The familiars are coming!”

  The Familiar Marina Never Saw Coming

  The sunshine was like a spotlight. The seaside sands of Seaside Sands were the stage, and all the ten-year-olds were actors.

  The people of three towns gathered in a huge crowd, away from the beach. Onlookers were allowed to watch from a distance, with binoculars. With them were familiars of all species, shapes, and sizes. Once you were bonded, your familiar was always by your side.

  Marina tried to find her dad and brother (and Crabby and Sea Lion) in the crowd, but she couldn’t see them.

  “Welcome to Pairing Day! I am Mayor Meilleure Mejor, mayor of Seaside Sands. Thank you for joining us, Riverside Reeds and Woodside Timbers! And now . . . the sun is at its highest point!”

  The audience around the kids cheered.

  Nothing happened. Was something supposed to happen?

  Marina tried to remember how the pairings started when Harbor was getting his sea lion three years ago. She wished Harbor was with her now. He always made her feel better because he never worried about anything.

  The ground shook. Marina looked up and saw . . . a stampede!

  Elephants, lions, giraffes from the southwest. Turkeys, pigs, sheep from the northwest. Bears, deer, raccoons from the north. Alligators, frogs, beavers from the south. Very wriggly bugs popped up from the ground.

  There were cats, dogs, bunnies, ferrets, mice, hamsters, and hedgehogs. Birds, bats, and flying squirrels were swooping down from the sky. Dolphins, stingrays, sharks, lobsters, seahorses, and turtles rode in on the tide.

  Turtle!

  Marina turned to a cluster of three turtles. They waddled her way. She threw her arms wide, and—

  They walked past her. One of the turtles crawl ed onto Wade’s foot and nibbled at his toe.

  “Aww, buddy!” Wade said, picking up his turtle.

  And they were bonded. Marina didn’t know how she knew. She just knew.

  It was a zoo. Animals swirled around like a whirlpool. Meanwhile, Marina continued to worry.

  Mayor Mejor had said that a familiar would come to her . . . but Marina found it impossible to wait. She tried to move closer, but animals were dodging and ducking around her. Every time Marina got near an animal, it ran away. She felt like she was wearing familiar repellent. What if her familiar got lost? What if it was at a different Pairing Day ceremony, looking for her just as frantically as she was looking for it?

  To her left, a girl bonded with an eel. To her right, a boy bonded with a butterfly. Someone Marina knew from her lower-school class was petting her new pygmy goat.

  The blond boy that had sat in front of Marina was trying to calm his new hippo. Marina didn’t see the girl with black hair in a short, sharp haircut.

  There were a group of kids from a neighboring town with a monkey, flamingo, French bulldog, zebra, and wombat.

  It seemed like almost everyone had made their bond, but not Marina. She was still chasing animals. She rushed toward a cluster of hermit crabs, who scattered away. What if her familiar didn’t like her? What if that’s why it was delayed?

  At the edge of the beach, a sloth was crawling toward everyone.

  Of course, Marina thought. My familiar is just very, very slow. That explains everything. One step, two step. The sloth was painfully sluggish.

  It stopped at the foot of a kid named Remy, also from Marina’s class.

  “Finally!” Remy said as the sloth wrapped itself around their body. “You found me! You’re slower than a snail. I’ll call you Snail.”

  Marina looked around for her own sloth, or snail, or very, very, very, very, very slow slug. Nothing came.

  She felt ill, watching all the familiars cuddle with their human pairs.

  The animals were leaving now. The land animals went marching home. The sea creatures slipped back into the ocean, not to be seen again until next year, when they would try to find a match. Every human had an animal pairing, but the reverse was not true. Some animals would never bond with a human.

  What if . . .

  What if she was like those rudderless animals? What if she was the only person in the world without a familiar?

  Marina was numb. She worried about everything all the time. But she never dreamed that this could happen. It was the familiar she never saw coming . . . because her familiar never came.

  “Excellent!” Mayor Mejor said as Peckadilly pecked her head. “Now that everyone has their familiar, we can head to the Pairing Day celebrat—”

  Marina raised her hand. “I don’t.”

  “What?”

  She felt sick to her stomach. “I don’t have a familiar,” Marina said, louder.

  Every eye—from all three towns—stared at her.

  Unprecedented

  “This is unprecedented!” Mayor Mejor said. “Just . . . unprecedented!”

  “Are you sure it’s not a lice?” said the boy next to her, with his bluebird. “Those are small and hard to see.”

  “‘Lice’ is plural. Singular is ‘louse,’” someone corrected. Then they shouted at Marina, “Are you sure you don’t have a louse?”

  “Or a mouse?”

  “Or a grouse!”

  “Or a frog?”

  “Or a dog?”

  “Or a hog!”

  “This is unprecedented!” Mayor Mejor said again.

  “I don’t have one either!” said a loud voice from across the sand. It was the girl with light brown skin and short black hair, who had been sitting in front of Marina. The one who said she’d rather die than have a woodpecker.

  She’d probably prefer a woodpecker over this, Marina thought miserably.

  The girl marched over to Marina. She was frowning, and her arms were folded.

  “Two! Two! This has never—this is unprecedented.”

  Marina wished she knew what that meant.

  At first, everyone seemed curious. Now they seemed afraid of them. They stepped away, so that Marina and the other girl were standing alone.

  “At least we’re together,” the girl said to Marina. Those four words made Marina feel so warm inside. So thankful. “I’m Kit from Woodside Timbers.”

  “Marina. From here . . . Seaside Sands.”

  “Anyone else?” Mayor Mejor called. “Anyone else not have a familiar?”

  There was silence.

  Then everyone took another step away from Marina and Kit. Like they had a contagious disease.

  “Congratulations to, uh, almost everyone. It’s time to head to the celebration party, in the public library and its courtyard. Humans, please make sure your familiars do not eat the books. I assure you, the cookbooks do not taste like their pictures.” People began to shuffle toward the library. Marina and Kit too. Then the mayor dropped her voice and said, “Not you two. You wait here. I—I need to look something up . . . make some calls. Unprecedented!”

  Were they in trouble? What if they were kicked out of their hometowns? Marina’s insides twisted as she watched the mayor scurry away and disappear inside city hall.

  Kit waded into the ocean. The water was up to her knees. Marina started to follow but stopped short, at ankle-deep. Swimming had never come easy to her, like it did for Dad and Harbor. She always felt like she was fighting the ocean, struggling against every wave. And with every stroke, she overthought: the creatures, the riptides, the depth of the ocean, the width of the ocean, the unknowing of everything lurking beneath her, the dread that she could slip under so quietly and easily . . .

  Kit didn’t seem to have those same worries. She kicked the waves casually. “I hope this means our families got our birthdays wrong. Maybe we’re only nine, and our true Pairing Day is next year.”

  “Maybe,” Marina said. She wanted Kit’s idea to be true, even though she knew it wasn’t. “I really wanted a sea creature.”

  “Yeah?” Kit seemed interested. “Like a narwhal? They are the unicorns of the sea.”

  “Not a narwhal. Something real.”

  “Narwhals are totally real, Marina!”

  “I’ve lived by the sea my whole life, and I’ve never ever seen a narwhal.”

  “So?” Kit said. “I haven’t seen a tiger. Are tigers not real?” Kit smirked like she’d caught Marina in a trap.

  The wind blew. The townspeople were gone. From across the beach, figures were heading toward them. The mayor?

  No, it was just Marina’s family and Kit’s grandparents. Marina’s dad had tried to hide his crab familiar in his shirt, so that Marina didn’t feel bad. But Crabby ended up pinching her dad on his chest.

  “Don’t worry—ouch!—Marina. It will—ouch!—all be okay.”

  “I’ll share Sea Lion with you,” Harbor said. “I really will.” Sea Lion scooted over to Marina and planted a sloppy kiss on her kneecap.

  It was a kind but gross gesture.

  Kit’s grandparents rubbed her back. They both had salamanders or newts or geckos on their shoulders. Marina couldn’t really tell the difference.

  “This is a mistake,” her grandmother said. “We will sort this out.”

  “How long do we have to wait, anyway?” Kit asked, bored. “I want to go home.”

  “You’re not going home without a familiar!” Kit’s grandmother said. “And I’m not going home until we find out who stole yours.”

  They waited forever on the sandy seaside of Seaside Sands. Kit’s grandmother checked her watch often and clucked her tongue in disapproval. Kit and her grandfather began collecting seashells in a neat pile. Harbor threw a ball for Sea Lion to fetch over and over . . . until Sea Lion got bored and began splashing around in the ocean. Marina and her father played too many rounds of tic-tac-toe in the sand.

  Soon, the sun was no longer above their heads. It was halfway across the sky. The light twinkled on the surface of the water. The afternoon was breezy.

  At last, many shadows appeared across the beach—Mayor Mejor in front, with her woodpecker hammering her hair. Behind her were a bunch of kids and a handful of adults. Marina didn’t recognize any of them. They definitely weren’t from Seaside Sands.

 

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